Five Winter Glove Range 2015
The FIVE brand, available in 47 countries across five continents, bases its development on a simple principle: you can’t design a pair of gloves like you design an item of clothing. When you’re on a motorbike, the glove isn’t just an accessory, it tells the bike how you’re feeling. Whether you’re overtaking, braking as you reach a bend or making sure you get every last bit of juice from the engine, it’s responsible for so many decisions that can influence performance and safety. That’s why FIVE’s sole aim is to develop and produce the most advanced gloves, using cutting-edge technology and drawing on our wealth of racing experience.
French-Italian founder of the FIVE brand Franck Fazio worked for long years with the most prestigious Italian motorcycle equipment makers, coming into contact with the world’s top riders. Talking with one of these — one of the most demanding in terms of his equipment and concerned about the slightest detail — revealed his dissatisfaction with the degree of precision and protection of the gloves provided by his sponsor (even though it was a renowned brand in the field of motorbike clothing), and the idea came to him to concentrate on this product specifically.
Observing that there was a leader in each category of product (helmets, boots, masks, clothing) and yet no brand was putting in the effort required to develop gloves in terms of protection, fit, and design, Franck was convinced he could offer a real plus in terms of glove performance, and this was the confirmation he needed to launch himself in this market. He quite naturally decided to give the name FIVE to his brand, intended to protect the hand’s 5 fingers. His move surprised a great many people, certain he would fail if he dared build a brand around a single glove product. Now, some ten years later, Five’s success seems to show those sceptics were wrong. But the finest recognition comes from riders who have been wearing FIVE gloves all these years. Thanks to them, the brand has travelled millions and millions of kilometres at the handlebars of thousands of different bikes.
Franck Fazio has always believed in getting involved in competition and has always had a close, almost paternalistic, relationship with “his” riders. So it’s only logical he would offer a few of them the prospect of joining FIVE after their sporting career. Stéphane Chambon, ex-World Supersport champion and winner of the Le Mans 24-hour has been one of the brand’s partners since it started. The Head of Development for FIVE gloves and competition is none other than Boris Chambon, ex-World Supermoto Champion. And the Export Sales Manager is also a former Supermoto World Champion, Jérome Giraudo, who goes round the world now not to win titles, but to promote FIVE — with great success! Everyone within FIVE is a practising biker, whether for leisure or in competition.
The hand is the most complex part of the human body – and also the hardest to protect. The hand contains the highest number of bones, joints, ligaments, and nerve endings in such a limited space. If you try not using your hand, even just for an hour, you soon realize how important it is in daily life. A hand injury can prove to be a serious disadvantage in motor biking, including professionally. Would you be able to continue your activity with an injured, immobilized hand?
In biking, the hand is the most exposed member in the event of a fall. Our reflexes make us instinctively place our hands between us and any obstacle that comes along. We often put out a hand to save ourselves and soften the impact when we hit the ground. And even at low speeds, tarmac is rarely a welcoming surface.
When we are developing gloves, we take account of the specific characteristics of the hand — a member that is at one and the same time complex, fragile, and exposed. The degree of protection they offer proves systematically superior to the average for other commercially-available products. When you look at a FIVE glove, you will appreciate that each protective element, each material is positioned in strategic places so as to offer optimum protection.
Vital elements for controlling your bike are located on the handlebars. You steer, accelerate, brake (70% of the braking power is obtained via the front brake), control — in short, drive your bike with the help of your hands. Your safety and performance as a rider are largely in your own hands — literally! So it is of paramount importance to be able to feel the controls properly, to have optimum mobility of each joint. Rather like a pianist, the rider has to compose his trajectory by subtly combining the actions of acceleration, gear-changing, and braking, using just pressure on the levers and twist-grip — and plays this score with the tips of his fingers without the slightest wrong note.
The ease of each finger and each knuckle can make all the difference in terms of precision, performance, safety, and more generally, comfort. Hence the patterns for our gloves are designed with the greatest care, the materials chosen according to their contribution in terms of mobility, and each component selected and assembled all with the aim of achieving the perfect fit.
We could content ourselves with producing comfortable, protective gloves. But our passion for bikes extends to aesthetic criteria too. Gloves reflect the personality of the person wearing them. Historically and symbolically, gloves have always been an important element in dress, for women and men alike, and would often be seen as conveying distinction. We’re thinking especially here of white uniform gloves and driving gloves worn by gentlemen. Even though it’s no longer usual to wear gloves from morning till night in everyday life, it is still true however that gloves — indispensable now for their protective function alone — can still embellish the person wearing them.
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Thus we have chosen to create gloves that will reflect your personality and how demanding you are. And even though our innovative design is often copied by certain non-specialist manufacturers, wearing genuine FIVE gloves testifies to your desire for quality and authenticity. Our design combines perfectly functionality, performance, and aesthetics.
